Avenged Sevenfold Hail to the King and Waking the Fallen: Resurrected (2012-14) Most notable aspect of this ? On April 11, 2012, Avenged Sevenfold won the award for "Best Live Band" and "Most Dedicated Fans" at the Revolver Golden Gods awards. what inspired this? I don't know. what was interesting during this period? On September 24, 2012, Avenged Sevenfold released a new song, titled "Carry On"; it was featured in the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops II.
Any discord during this time or disagreement amongst members?
Any discord during the time Avenged Sevenfold won the award for "Best Live Band" and "Most Dedicated Fans" or disagreement amongst members?
On April 11, 2012, Avenged Sevenfold won the award for "Best Live Band" and "Most Dedicated Fans" at the Revolver Golden Gods awards. The band toured through Asia into April and early May, and played at the Orion Music + More, Festival on June 23 and 24 in Atlantic City, New Jersey alongside Metallica and Cage the Elephant among many others.  On September 24, 2012, Avenged Sevenfold released a new song, titled "Carry On"; it was featured in the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops II. On November 15, 2012, vocalist M. Shadows said that the band had been working on a new album since the recording of "Carry On" in August 2012. The band began recording material for the album in January 2013. The band then started streaming snippets of the album in May 2013 on their new radio app. There, Arin Ilejay was confirmed as an official band member and replacement of deceased The Rev. M. Shadows said that the album would sound more blues rock-influenced and more like classic rock/metal like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin.  The band was confirmed to play at the 2013 Rock in Rio festival on September 22, 2013. On May 24, 2013, the band have announced dates for their European tour with Five Finger Death Punch and Device serving as their support bands.  The album, entitled Hail to the King, was released on August 27, 2013. This is the first Avenged Sevenfold album without any musical contributions from deceased The Rev. The album's lead single and title track was released on July 15, 2013. Hail to the King charted as No. 1 on the US Billboard 200, the UK albums chart, as well as the Finnish, Brazilian, Canadian, and Irish charts, and was commercially and critically acclaimed. The band headlined Monster Energy's Welcome to Rockville two-day music festival in Jacksonville, FL, April 26-27, 2014, joined by more than 25 rock acts, such as Motorhead, Rob Zombie, Chevelle, Korn, Staind, Alter Bridge, The Cult, Five Finger Death Punch, Volbeat, Black Label Society, and Seether. On June 13, the band headlined the Friday night of Download Festival 2014. The band also headlined the Mayhem Festival 2014 with Korn, Asking Alexandria, and Trivium.  In March 2014, vocalist M. Shadows revealed in an interview with Loudwire that the band had plans in the works to put something out for the overdue 10th anniversary of Waking the Fallen. Waking the Fallen: Resurrected was released August 25, 2014. The reissue charted No. 10 on the US Billboard 200. CANNOTANSWER
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Avenged Sevenfold (abbreviated as A7X) is an American heavy metal band from Huntington Beach, California, formed in 1999. The band's current lineup consists of lead vocalist M. Shadows, rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist Zacky Vengeance, lead guitarist and backing vocalist Synyster Gates, bassist and backing vocalist Johnny Christ, and drummer Brooks Wackerman.

Avenged Sevenfold is known for its diverse rock sound and dramatic imagery in album covers and merchandise. The band emerged with a metalcore sound on their debut album Sounding the Seventh Trumpet and continued this sound through their second album Waking the Fallen. However, the band's style had evolved by the group's third album and first major label release, City of Evil, into a heavy metal and hard rock style. The band continued to explore new sounds with its self-titled release and enjoyed continued mainstream success before their drummer, James "The Rev" Sullivan, died in 2009. Despite his death, Avenged Sevenfold continued on with the help of drummer Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater), and released and toured in support of their fifth album Nightmare in 2010, which debuted on the top spot of the Billboard 200, their first number one debut.

In 2011 drummer Arin Ilejay joined the band on tours and recording. The band's sixth studio album Hail to the King, which was released in 2013, marked the only Avenged Sevenfold album featuring Ilejay. Hail to the King charted as number 1 on the Billboard 200, the UK Albums chart, as well as the Finnish, Brazilian, Canadian, and Irish charts. In late 2014, Ilejay left the band, and was replaced by former Bad Religion drummer Brooks Wackerman, but the lineup change was not announced to the public until 2015. The band then surprise-released their seventh studio album titled The Stage on October 28, 2016, which debuted as number 4 on the Billboard 200 chart in the US. The Stage is their first conceptual album and it marked another stylistic change for the band, moving towards a progressive metal sound.

To date, Avenged Sevenfold has released seven studio albums, one live album/DVD, two compilation albums and eighteen singles and have sold over 8 million albums worldwide, and their records have received numerous certification awards, including five platinum album awards from their home country's institution (RIAA). They have also created four original songs for the Call of Duty: Black Ops series, all of which were compiled together in the 2018 EP Black Reign. The band were ranked No. 47 on Loudwire's list of Top 50 Metal Bands of All Time.

History

Formation and Sounding the Seventh Trumpet (1999–2002)
Avenged Sevenfold was formed in March 1999 in Huntington Beach, California by Matt Sanders, James Sullivan and Matt Wendt. Although they are not a religious band, Sanders came up with the name as a reference to the story of Cain and Abel from the Bible, which can be found in Genesis 4:24. Shortly after their formation, they were joined by an acquaintance from high school, Zachary Baker, who played in the punk band MPA (short for Mad Porn Action) at the time.

Avenged Sevenfold's first creative output was a three-track-demo recorded in early 1999. In early 2000, they were asked by Sadistic Records to contribute to two compilations. To that end, they recorded two new songs and released them along with the previously recorded songs on a second demo. They sent this demo to the Belgian label Good Life Recordings and were subsequently signed. Afterwards, the band participated in another two compilation albums, their label's GoodLife 4 and Novocaine Records' Scrape III compilations. Around this time, Matt Wendt left for college and Justin Meacham, the previous bassist of Suburban Legends, joined Avenged Sevenfold. In late 2000, the foursome took on their initial stage names – M. Shadows, Zacky Vengeance, Justin Sane and The Rev – and recorded their debut album, Sounding the Seventh Trumpet. In early 2001, lead guitarist and old friend Synyster Gates joined the band and they re-recorded the introductory track "To End the Rapture" for the album's lead-single/EP, Warmness on the Soul, released in April 2001. Although their debut album's release was initially planned for the same month, it was pushed back multiple times and eventually released on July 24, 2001, on Good Life Recordings.

Around August 2001, Meacham attempted suicide by drinking excessive amounts of cough syrup. This event was the reason for Avenged Sevenfold to join the Take Action Tour in 2003. During Meacham's hospitalization, he remained in poor condition and had to leave the band. In an interview, lead singer M. Shadows said of Meacham that "he perma-fried his brain and was in a mental institution for a long time, and when you have someone in your band who does that, it ruins everything that's going on all around you, and it makes you want to do something to prevent it from happening to other people." His replacement was Frank Melcom, stage name Dameon Ash, who performed with the band for the following months, but does not appear on any releases.

On January 18, 2002, Avenged Sevenfold left Good Life Recordings and signed with Hopeless Records. They re-released their debut album on March 19 and also appeared on the Hopelessly Devoted To You Vol. 4 sampler in April. The band started to receive recognition, performing with bands such as Mushroomhead and Shadows Fall. They spent the year touring in support of their debut album and participated in the Vans Warped Tour. In September, Dameon Ash left Avenged Sevenfold and their current bassist Johnny Christ joined them, completing their best known line-up.

Waking the Fallen and City of Evil (2003–2005)

Having found a new bassist, the group released their second studio album titled Waking the Fallen on Hopeless Records in August 2003. The album featured a more refined and mature sound production in comparison to their previous album. The band received profiles in Billboard and The Boston Globe, and again played on the Vans Warped and Take Action tours. In 2004, Avenged Sevenfold toured again on the Vans Warped Tour and recorded a video for their song "Unholy Confessions" which went into rotation on MTV2's Headbangers Ball. Shortly after the release of Waking the Fallen, Avenged Sevenfold left Hopeless Records and were officially signed to Warner Bros. Records on November 1, 2003.

City of Evil, the band's third album and major label debut, was released on June 7, 2005, and debuted at No.30 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling over 30,000 copies in its first week of release. It utilized a more classic metal sound than Avenged Sevenfold's previous albums, which had been grouped into the metalcore genre. The album is also notable for the absence of screamed and growled vocals; M. Shadows worked with vocal coach Ron Anderson—whose clients have included Axl Rose and Chris Cornell—for months before the album's release to achieve a sound that had "grit while still having the tone". The album received positive reviews from several magazines and websites and is credited for propelling the band into international popularity.

Avenged Sevenfold (2006–2008)

After playing Ozzfest in 2006, Avenged Sevenfold memorably beat out R&B Singers Rihanna and Chris Brown, Panic! at the Disco, Angels & Airwaves and James Blunt for the title of Best New Artist at the MTV Video Music Awards, thanks in part to their Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas-inspired song "Bat Country." They returned to the Vans Warped Tour, this time headlining and then continued on their own "Cities of Evil Tour." In addition, their lead single "Bat Country" reached No.2 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Charts, No.6 on the Billboard Modern Rock Charts and the accompanying video made it to No.1 on MTV's Total Request Live. Propelled by this success, the album sold well and became Avenged Sevenfold's first Gold record. It was later certified platinum in August 2009.
Avenged Sevenfold was invited to join Ozzfest tour on the main stage, alongside other well known rock/heavy metal acts such as DragonForce, Lacuna Coil, Hatebreed, Disturbed and System of a Down for the first time in 2006. That same year they also completed a worldwide tour, including the US, The United Kingdom (as well as mainland Europe), Japan, Australia and New Zealand. After a sixteen-month promotion of City of Evil, the band announced that they were cancelling their Fall 2006 tour to record new music. In the interim, the band released their first DVD titled All Excess on July 17, 2007. All Excess, which debuted as the No.1 DVD in the US, included live performances and backstage footage that spanned the band's eight-year career. Two tribute albums, Strung Out on Avenged Sevenfold: Bat Wings and Broken Strings and Strung Out on Avenged Sevenfold: The String Tribute were also released in October 2007.

On October 30, 2007, Avenged Sevenfold released their self-titled album, the band's fourth studio album. It debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 with over 90,000 copies sold. Two singles, "Critical Acclaim" and "Almost Easy" were released prior to the album's debut. In December 2007, an animated video was made for "A Little Piece of Heaven". Due to the song's controversial subject matter, however, Warner Brothers only released it to registered MVI users over the internet. The third single, "Afterlife" and its video was released in January 2008. Their fourth single, "Dear God", was released on June 15, 2008. Although critical reception was generally mixed the self-titled album went on to sell over 500,000 copies and was awarded "Album of the Year" at the Kerrang! Awards.

Avenged Sevenfold headlined the 2008 Taste of Chaos tour with Atreyu, Bullet for My Valentine, Blessthefall and Idiot Pilot. They used the footage from their last show in Long Beach for Live in the LBC & Diamonds in the Rough, a two-disc B-sides CD and live DVD which was released on September 16, 2008. They also recorded numerous covers, including Pantera's "Walk", Iron Maiden's "Flash of the Blade" and Black Sabbath's "Paranoid".

Death of The Rev and Nightmare (2009–2011)

In January 2009, M. Shadows confirmed that the band was writing the follow-up to their self-titled fourth album within the upcoming months. They also played at Rock on the Range, from May 16–17, 2009. On April 16, they performed a version of Guns N' Roses' "It's So Easy" onstage with Slash, at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles. On December 28, 2009, the band's drummer James "The Rev" Sullivan was found dead at his home at the age of 28. Autopsy results were inconclusive, but on June 9, 2010, the cause of death was revealed to have been an "acute polydrug intoxication due to combined effects of Oxycodone, Oxymorphone, Diazepam/Nordiazepam and ethanol". In a statement by the band, they expressed their grief over the death of The Rev and later posted a message from Sullivan's family which expressed their gratitude to his fans for their support. The band members admitted in a number of interviews that they considered disbanding at this point in time. However, on February 17, 2010, Avenged Sevenfold stated that they had entered the studio, along with now-former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, to drum for the album, in place of The Rev.

The single "Nightmare" was digitally released on May 18, 2010. A preview for the song was released on May 6, 2010, on Amazon.com, but was removed soon after for unknown reasons. Mixing for the album had been completed in New York City, and Nightmare was finally released worldwide on July 27, 2010. It met with mixed to positive reviews from music critics but was well received by the fans. Nightmare beat sales projections easily, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 with sales of 163,000 units in its first week. After finishing recording, in December, Portnoy and the band posted simultaneous statements on their websites stating that he would not be their replacement for The Rev. However, Portnoy did travel with the band overseas in December 2010 for three shows in Iraq and Kuwait sponsored by the USO. They played for U.S. Soldiers at Camp Adder, Camp Beuhring, and Balad Air Base. On January 20, 2011, Avenged Sevenfold announced via Facebook that former Confide drummer Arin Ilejay would begin touring with them that year. He was not yet considered a full-time member at this point.

Avenged Sevenfold performed at the Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals on June 3–5, 2011 alongside other bands such as Alter Bridge, System of a Down, and In Flames. In April 2011, the band headlined the Golden God Awards held by Metal Hammer. The same night the band won three awards for "Best Vocalist" (M. Shadows), "Epiphone Best Guitarist(s)" (Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance), and "Affliction's Album of The Year" for Nightmare, while Mike Portnoy won the award for "Drum Workshop's Best Drummer" for his work on the album.

Avenged Sevenfold headlined the 2011 Uproar Festival with supporting acts Three Days Grace, Seether, Bullet for My Valentine, Escape the Fate, among others. In November and December 2011, the band went on their "Buried Alive" tour with supporting acts Hollywood Undead, Asking Alexandria, and Black Veil Brides.

Hail to the King and Waking the Fallen: Resurrected (2012–2014)
On April 11, 2012, Avenged Sevenfold won the award for "Best Live Band" and "Most Dedicated Fans" at the Revolver Golden Gods awards.
The band toured through Asia into April and early May, and played at the Orion Music + More, Festival on June 23 and 24 in Atlantic City, New Jersey alongside Metallica and Cage the Elephant among many others.

On September 24, 2012, Avenged Sevenfold released a new song, titled "Carry On"; it was featured in the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops II. On November 15, 2012, vocalist M. Shadows said that the band had been working on a new album since the recording of "Carry On" in August 2012. The band began recording material for the album in January 2013. The band then started streaming snippets of the album in May 2013 on their new radio app. There, Arin Ilejay was confirmed as an official band member and replacement of deceased The Rev. M. Shadows said that the album would sound more blues rock-influenced and more like classic rock/metal like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin.

The band was confirmed to play at the 2013 Rock in Rio festival on September 22, 2013. On May 24, 2013, the band have announced dates for their European tour with Five Finger Death Punch and Device serving as their support bands.

The album, entitled Hail to the King, was released on August 27, 2013. This is the first Avenged Sevenfold album without any musical contributions from deceased The Rev. The album's lead single and title track was released on July 15, 2013. Hail to the King charted as No. 1 on the US Billboard 200, the UK albums chart, as well as the Finnish, Brazilian, Canadian, and Irish charts, and was commercially and critically acclaimed. The band headlined Monster Energy's Welcome to Rockville two-day music festival in Jacksonville, Florida, April 26–27, 2014, joined by more than 25 rock acts, such as Motörhead, Rob Zombie, Chevelle, Korn, Staind, Alter Bridge, The Cult, Five Finger Death Punch, Volbeat, Black Label Society, and Seether. On June 13, the band headlined the Friday night of Download Festival 2014. The band also headlined the Mayhem Festival 2014 with Korn, Asking Alexandria, and Trivium.

In March 2014, vocalist M. Shadows revealed in an interview with Loudwire that the band had plans in the works to put something out for the overdue 10th anniversary of Waking the Fallen. Waking the Fallen: Resurrected was released August 25, 2014. The reissue charted No. 10 on the US Billboard 200.

Drummer change and The Stage (2015–2017)
In October 2014, M. Shadows confirmed that the band would begin writing their seventh album during mid-2015.

In July 2015 the band announced on their website that they would part ways with drummer Arin Ilejay, due to "creative differences". In October 2015, the band announced on their website that they had been working with a new drummer for over a year, making sure that it was a good fit before making sudden changes. On October 21, in an interview with Kerrang! magazine, guitarist Zacky Vengeance revealed that the band had been working on the new album for the past couple of months and that a couple of songs had already been completely written. On November 4, 2015, the band announced that Brooks Wackerman would replace Arin Ilejay as the drummer for Avenged Sevenfold. In an interview with Kerrang! magazine on December 3, guitarist Zacky Vengeance said that the new album went in all sorts of aggressive and melodic directions and described it as very "aggro".

On January 14, 2016, Billboard reported that Avenged Sevenfold had been sued by Warner Bros. for trying to leave the label. The band later released a statement clarifying that they wanted to leave because a majority of the executives who helped sign the band to Warner Bros were no longer at the label. They also revealed that the band was going to be entering the studio to record their new album very soon, intending to release it later in 2016. On March 31, the band posted a teaser of their upcoming album on their website.

On August 18, 2016, the band performed a free live show for 1500 people in Minnesota, marking it the first live performance with new drummer Brooks Wackerman. The band was announced as support for Metallica with Volbeat in the U.S. Bank Stadium on August 20, 2016, making it the first ever rock show in the stadium. The band was announced as a headliner of Monster Energy Rock Allegiance 2016, along with Alice in Chains, Slayer, The Offspring, Breaking Benjamin and others. Avenged Sevenfold also performed on "Louder Than Life" festival as headliners on October 1, with Slipknot, Slayer, Disturbed, Korn and other artists. On June 21, the band announced a U.S. Fall tour with Volbeat, Killswitch Engage, and Avatar. The band also announced a UK tour for January 2017 with Disturbed and In Flames. Avenged Sevenfold was announced as a headliner of 2016 edition of Knotfest Mexico. The band also announced the European Tour for February and March 2017 along with Disturbed and Chevelle.

On October 3, 2016, the band's logo Deathbat started appearing as a projection in London. After that, Deathbat also started appearing in Berlin, Toronto and Paris, indicating a release of the new album. On October 12, Chris Jericho posted an Instagram photo of the Deathbat logo with a date 12/9/16 underneath it. He then revealed the supposed title of the album, Voltaic Oceans, It was later revealed that the new album would actually be called The Stage, a concept album about artificial intelligence, which was released on October 28, 2016, via Capitol Records. The album was released to generally favorable reviews, and the band decided to make a unique stage production for it, hiring Cirque du Soleil directors for its making.

Avenged Sevenfold was announced as the main support act on Metallica's WorldWired 2017 stadium summer tour in the US and Canada, alongside Volbeat and Gojira. The band also announced a series of 2017 US headlining summer shows of The Stage World Tour, with Volbeat, Motionless in White, and A Day to Remember as special guests across various dates.

On December 22, 2017, the band released a deluxe edition of The Stage that included one new original track, six cover songs, and four live tracks from their European tour earlier that year.

In a December 2017 interview with Billboard, M. Shadows revealed that the band are planning "a big US summer 2018 tour", and that the band would start working on the follow-up to The Stage in late 2018. End of the World tour with Prophets of Rage was later announced for summer 2018. The band was also announced as one of the headliners of 2018's Rock on the Range and Download Festival, in addition to appearing at Hellfest, Graspop Metal Meeting, Rock am Ring and Rock im Park the same year. Due to a blood blister forming in M. Shadows' throat, the band cancelled remaining dates from their summer tour with Prophets of Rage.

Avenged Sevenfold was nominated at 60th Annual Grammy Awards in "Best Rock Song" category for The Stage.

The band released a single titled "Mad Hatter" in September 2018, which was made specifically for the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. It would later be a part of the Black Reign EP released later that month, which comprises all four of the songs Avenged Sevenfold made for the Call of Duty franchise.

Upcoming eighth studio album (2018–present)
In a December 2017 interview with Billboard, M. Shadows revealed that the band are planning "a big US summer 2018 tour", and that the band would start working on the follow-up to The Stage in late 2018. Bassist Johnny Christ in a May 2018 interview confirmed that the band is currently getting ideas and writing in their own studios to start the next record in September or October 2018.

In September 2018, Synyster Gates revealed in an interview with Loudwire that the band has started working on their eighth studio album, saying "It's still early on, but we're working on a bunch of stuff". In March 2019, Zacky Vengeance stated the band would take the rest of the year off tour to concentrate on the upcoming album, saying the band is really focused on the new material. In January 2020, Avenged Sevenfold released "Set Me Free", an unreleased song recorded during the Hail to the King recording sessions. They also announced that the song would be included in a remastered re-release of Live in the LBC & Diamonds in the Rough, released on March 6. A limited edition clear vinyl of Diamonds in the Rough was also released.

Musical style and influences

Members of Avenged Sevenfold cite In Flames, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Slayer, Mr. Bungle, Elton John, Leonard Cohen, At the Gates, Helloween, Dream Theater, Pennywise, NOFX, Pantera, Def Leppard, Guns N' Roses, The Beatles, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and the Rolling Stones as influences.

The band has been categorized under several genres of heavy and extreme music, primarily heavy metal, alternative metal, hard rock, and, on their album The Stage, progressive metal, with their earlier albums being categorized as metalcore. Avenged Sevenfold's musical style has consistently evolved throughout the duration of the band's career. Initially, the band's debut album Sounding the Seventh Trumpet consisted almost entirely of a metalcore sound. However, there were several deviations from this genre, most notably in "Streets", which shows a punk rock style, and "Warmness on the Soul", which is a piano ballad. On Waking the Fallen, the band displayed a metalcore style once more, but added more clean singing and leaned a bit more towards metal and bit less close to hardcore. In the band's DVD All Excess, producer Andrew Murdock explained this transition: "When I met the band after Sounding the Seventh Trumpet had come out before they had recorded Waking the Fallen, M. Shadows said to me 'This record is screaming. The record we want to make is going to be half-screaming half-singing. I don't want to scream anymore. And the record after that is going to be all singing'."

On Avenged Sevenfold's third album City of Evil, the band chose to outright abandon the metalcore genre, creating a sound consistent with hard rock and heavy metal. Avenged Sevenfold's self-titled album experiments with an even wider array of musical genres than that from City of Evil, most notably in "Dear God", which shows a country style and "A Little Piece of Heaven", which is circled within the influence of Broadway show tunes, using primarily brass instruments and stringed orchestra to take over most of the role of the lead and rhythm guitar. Nightmare contains further deviations, including a piano ballad called "Fiction", progressive metal-oriented track "Save Me" and a heavy metal sound with extreme vocals and heavier instrumentation on "God Hates Us". The band's sixth studio album Hail to the King shows more of a classic metal sound and a riff-oriented approach. On their newest album The Stage, the band explores further into progressive metal, blending it with elements of thrash metal. In the past, Avenged Sevenfold has also been described as screamo and pop punk metal.

Avenged Sevenfold has been criticized for "not being metal enough". In response to this, vocalist M. Shadows said: "we play music for the sake of music, not so that we can be labeled a metal band. That's like telling us we aren't punk enough. Who cares?" Avenged Sevenfold is one of the notable acts of the new wave of American heavy metal.

Band members

Current members
 M. Shadows – lead vocals, piano (1999–present)
 Zacky Vengeance – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1999–present); lead guitar (1999–2001)
 Synyster Gates – lead guitar, piano, backing vocals (2001–present)
 Johnny Christ – bass, backing vocals (2002–present)
 Brooks Wackerman – drums (2015–present)

Former members
 Matt Wendt – bass (1999–2000)
 Justin Sane – bass, piano (2000–2001)
 Dameon Ash – bass (2001–2002)
 The Rev – drums, piano, co-lead vocals (1999–2009; died 2009)
 Arin Ilejay – drums (2011–2015)

Session and touring musicians
 Mike Portnoy – drums (2010)

 
Timeline

Discography

Studio albums
 Sounding the Seventh Trumpet (2001)
 Waking the Fallen (2003)
 City of Evil (2005)
 Avenged Sevenfold (2007)
 Nightmare (2010)
 Hail to the King (2013)
 The Stage (2016)

Accolades

References

External links

 
American alternative metal musical groups
American metalcore musical groups
Articles which contain graphical timelines
Capitol Records artists
Hard rock musical groups from California
Heavy metal musical groups from California
Hopeless Records artists
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups established in 1999
Musical groups from Orange County, California
Musical quintets
Warner Records artists
1999 establishments in California
Good Life Recordings artists
Discord is a VoIP, instant messaging and digital distribution platform. Users communicate with voice calls, video calls, text messaging, media and files in private chats or as part of communities called "servers". A server is a collection of persistent chat rooms and voice chat channels which can be accessed via invite links. Discord runs on Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, iPadOS, Linux, and in web browsers. , the service has over 350 million registered users and over 150 million monthly active users.

History
The concept of Discord came from Jason Citron, who had founded OpenFeint, a social gaming platform for mobile games, and Stanislav Vishnevsky, who had founded Guildwork, another social gaming platform. Citron sold OpenFeint to GREE in 2011 for million, which he used to found Hammer & Chisel, a game development studio, in 2012. Their first product was Fates Forever, released in 2014, which Citron anticipated to be the first MOBA game on mobile platforms, but it did not become commercially successful.

According to Citron, during the development process, he noticed how difficult it was for his team to work out tactics in games like Final Fantasy XIV and League of Legends using available voice over IP (VoIP) software. This led to the development of a chat service with a focus on user friendliness with minimal impact to performance.

To develop Discord, Hammer & Chisel gained additional funding from YouWeb's 9+ incubator, which had also funded the startup of Hammer & Chisel, and from Benchmark capital and Tencent.

Discord was publicly released in May 2015 under the domain name discordapp.com. According to Citron, they made no specific moves to target any specific audience, but some gaming-related subreddits quickly began to switch their IRC links with Discord links. Discord became widely used by esports and LAN tournament gamers. The company benefited from relationships with Twitch streamers and subreddit communities for Diablo and World of Warcraft.

In January 2016, Discord raised an additional $20 million in funding including an investment from WarnerMedia (then TimeWarner). In 2019, WarnerMedia Investment Group was shutdown and acquired by AT&T, selling its equity.

Microsoft announced in April 2018 that it will provide Discord support for Xbox Live users, allowing them to link their Discord and Xbox Live accounts so that they can connect with their Xbox Live friends list through Discord.

In December 2018, the company announced it raised $150 million in funding at a $2 billion valuation. The round was led by Greenoaks Capital with participation from Firstmark, Tencent, IVP, Index Ventures and Technology Opportunity Partners.

In March 2020, Discord changed its motto from "Chat for Gamers" to "Chat for Communities and Friends", and introduced server templates. This was part of their response to an increase in users as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In April 2020, Discord's Twitter username was changed from @discordapp to @discord. Later in May 2020, Discord changed its primary domain from discordapp.com to discord.com.

Starting in June 2020, Discord announced it was shifting focus away from video gaming specifically to a more all-purpose communication and chat client for all functions, revealing its new slogan "Your place to talk", along with a revised website. Among other planned changes would be to reduce the number of gaming in-jokes it uses within the client, improving the user onboarding experience, and increasing server capacity and reliability. The company announced it had received an additional $100 million in investments to help with these changes.

In March 2021, Discord announced it had hired its first finance chief, former head of finance for Pinterest Tomasz Marcinkowski. An inside source called this one of the first steps for the company towards a potential initial public offering, though co-founder and CEO Jason Citron had stated earlier in the month he was not thinking about taking the company public. Discord doubled its monthly user base to about 140 million in 2020. The same month, Bloomberg News and The Wall Street Journal reported that several companies were looking to purchase Discord, with Microsoft named as the likely lead buyer at a value estimated at . However, they ended talks with Microsoft, opting to stay independent. Instead, Discord launched another round of investment in April 2021. Among those investing into the company was Sony Interactive Entertainment; the company stated that it intended to integrate a portion of Discord's services into the PlayStation Network by 2022.

In May 2021, Discord rebranded its game controller-shaped logo "Clyde" in celebration of its sixth anniversary. The company also changed the color palette of its branding and user interfaces, making it much more saturated, to be more "bold and playful". They also changed its slogan from "your place to talk", to "imagine a place", believing that it would be easier to attach to additional taglines; these changes were met with backlash and criticism from Discord users.

In July 2021, Discord acquired Sentropy, a company that specialized in using artificial intelligence systems to monitor online networks for abusive messages to highlight problematic users, and provide recommendations to users for the means to block such messages or users. With the acquisition, Sentropy's tools will be used exclusively for monitoring Discord servers to help with Discord's goals to prevent harassment of users.

Ahead of a new funding round in August 2021, Discord had reported  in 2020 revenues, triple from the prior year, and had an estimated valuation of . According to Citron, the increased valuation was due to the shift away from "broadcast wide-open social media communication services to more small, intimate places", as well as increased usage from the COVID-19 pandemic. They also captured users that were leaving Facebook and other platforms due to privacy concerns. Citron states that they are still in talks with several potential buyers including all major gaming console manufacturers. From this, the company secured an additional  in further investments in September 2021.

In September 2021, Google sent cease and desist notices to the developers of two of the most popular music bots used on Discord – Groovy and Rythm – which were used on an estimated 36 million servers in total. These bots allowed users to request and play songs in a voice channel, taking the songs from YouTube ad-free. Two weeks later, Discord partnered with YouTube to test a "Watch Together" feature, which allows Discord users to watch YouTube videos together.

Citron had posted mockup images of Discord around the proposed Web3 principles with integrated cryptocurrency and non-fungible token support in November 2021, leading to criticism from its userbase. Citron later stated that "We appreciate all the perspectives we’ve been hearing in response to the internal concept you may have seen in a tweet earlier this week and want to clarify we have no plans to ship it at this time. We’re excited about the potential for Web3 technology and the positive ways these communities are coming together on Discord, especially those organized around environmentally friendly, creator-focused projects. However, we also recognize there are some problems we need to work through. For now, we’re focused on protecting users from spams, scams, and fraud."

Features 
Discord is built to create and manage private and public communities. It gives users access to tools focused around communication services like voice and video calls, persistent chat rooms, and integrations with other gamer-focused services along with the general ability to send direct messages and create personal groups. Although Discord services may initially seem directed only towards gamers, in recent years several new updates have made it more useful for the general population.

Servers 
Discord communities are organized into discrete collections of channels called servers. Although they are referred to as servers on the front end, they are called "guilds" in the developer documentation. Users can create servers for free, manage their public visibility, and create voice channels, text channels, and categories to sort the channels into. Any given server can have up to 800,000 members, as discovered when the official Discord server for the video game Genshin Impact reached maximum capacity, although Discord raised the capacity to over one million members for their Snowsgiving 2021 event, an official Discord-controlled server made for the 2021 winter holiday season.

Starting October 2017, Discord allows game developers and publishers to verify their servers. Verified servers, like verified accounts on social media sites, have badges to mark them as official communities. A verified server is moderated by its developers' or publishers' own moderation team. Verification was later extended in February 2018 to include esports teams and musical artists.

By the end of 2017, about 450 servers were verified.

Members can help servers obtain perks in three levels via the "Server Boost" feature, which unlocks higher quality voice channels, more emoji slots, and other perks. Users can buy boosts for servers for $4.99 a month. "Discord Nitro" subscribers get two boosts included in the price of Nitro, and 30% off for additional boosts.

In 2020, Discord unveiled a new feature, known as "Community servers". It includes such features like a custom welcome screen, server insights, and the ability to advertise on Discord's Server Discovery page.

Channels 
Channels may be either used for voice chat and streaming or for instant messaging and file sharing. The visibility and access to channels can be customized to limit access from certain users, for example, marking a channel "NSFW" (Not Safe For Work) requires that first-time viewers confirm they are over 18 years old and willing to see such content.

Text channels support some rich text via a subset of the Markdown syntax. Code blocks with language-specific highlighting can also be used.

Discord launched Stage Channels in May 2021, a feature similar to Clubhouse which allows for live, moderated channels, for audio talks, discussions, and other uses, which can further be potentially gated to only invited or ticketed users. Initially, users could search for open Stage Channels relevant  to their interests through a Stage Discovery tool, which was discontinued in October 2021.

In August, Discord launched Threads, which are temporary text channels that can be set to automatically disappear. This is meant to help foster more communication within Servers.

Direct messages 
Direct messages in Discord allow users to send messages, share files, live stream their screen, and call others privately outside of servers. An added feature in Discord direct messages is the ability to create message groups of up to 10 users. This acts similar to a server's text channel, with the ability to initiate a call simultaneously for all the members in a direct message group.

User profiles 
Users register for Discord with an email address and must create a username. To allow multiple users to use the same username, they are assigned a four-digit number called a "discriminator" (colloquially a "Discord tag"), prefixed with "#", which is added to the end of their username.

Discord allows users to connect various external platforms to their account, including Steam, Reddit, Twitch, Twitter, Spotify, Xbox, PlayStation, and more. These accounts can optionally be shown on the user's profile.

Users can assign themselves a profile picture. Subscribers for Discord Nitro, part of Discord's monetization plan, can use animated profile pictures.

In June 2021, Discord added a feature that allows all users to add an about me section to their profile, as well as a custom colored banner at the top of their profile. Subscribers for Discord Nitro have the added ability to upload a static or animated image as their banner instead of a solid color.

Video calls and streaming 
Video calling and screen sharing were added in October 2017, allowing users to create private video calls with up to 10 users, later increased to 50 due to the increased popularity of video calling during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In August 2019, this was expanded with live streaming channels in servers. A user can share their entire screen, or a specific application, and others in that channel can choose to watch the stream. While these features somewhat mimic the livestreaming capabilities of platforms like Twitch, the company does not plan to compete with these services, as these features were made for small groups.

Digital distribution 
In August 2018, Discord launched a games storefront beta, allowing users to purchase a curated set of games through the service. This will include a "First on Discord" featured set of games that their developers attest to Discord's help in getting launched, giving these games 90 days of exclusivity on the Discord marketplace. Discord Nitro subscribers will also gain access to a rotating set of games as part of their subscription, with the price of Nitro being bumped from $4.99 to $9.99 a month. A cheaper service called 'Nitro Classic' was also released that has the same perks as Nitro but does not include free games.

Following the launch of the Epic Games Store, which challenged Valve's Steam storefront by only taking a 12% cut of game revenue, Discord announced in December 2018 that it would reduce its own revenue cut to 10%.

To further support developers, starting in March 2019 Discord gave the ability for developers and publishers that ran their own servers to offer their games through a dedicated store channel on their server, with Discord managing the payment processing and distribution. This can be used, for example, to give select users access to alpha- and beta-builds of a game in progress as an early access alternative.

Also in March 2019, Discord removed the digital storefront, instead choosing to focus on the Nitro subscription and having direct sales be done through developer's own servers. In September 2019, Discord announced that it was ending its free game service in October 2019 as they found too few people were playing the games offered.

Developer tools 
In December 2016, the company introduced its GameBridge API, which allows game developers to directly integrate with Discord within games.

In December 2017, Discord added a software development kit that allows developers to integrate their games with the service, called "rich presence". This integration is commonly used to allow players to join each other's games through Discord or to display information about a player's game progression in their Discord profile.

Discord also provides tools for users to create their own bots. There are tools such as discord.js that allow bot developers to interact with the Discord API to control their bot.

Documentation for the Discord API is hosted on GitHub and formatted to be displayed on their website.

Infrastructure
Discord is a persistent group chat software, based on an eventually consistent database architecture.

Discord uses the metaphors of servers and channels similar to Internet Relay Chat even though these servers do not map to traditional hardware or virtual servers. They are instead database entities in Discord's servers.

The desktop, web, and iOS apps use React, using React Native on iOS/iPadOS. The Android app is written natively. The desktop client is built on the Electron framework using web technologies, which allows it to be multi-platform and operate as an installed application on personal computers.

The software is supported by eleven data centers around the world to keep latency with clients low.

Discord uses the Opus audio format, which is low latency and designed to compress speech.

In July 2020, Discord added noise suppression into its mobile app using the Krisp audio-filtering technology.

Discord's backend is written mostly in Elixir, Python, as well as Rust, Go, and C++.

Monetization 
While the software itself comes at no cost, the developers investigated ways to monetize it, with potential options including paid customization options such as emoji or stickers. The developers have stated that while they will look for ways to monetize the software, it will never lose its core features.

In January 2017, the first paid subscription and features were released with "Discord Nitro Classic" (originally released as "Discord Nitro"). For a monthly subscription fee of $4.99, users can get an animated avatar, use custom and/or animated emojis across all servers (non-Nitro users can only use custom emoji on the server they were added to), an increased maximum file size on file uploads (from 8 MB to 50 MB), the ability to screen share in higher resolutions, the ability to choose their own discriminator (from #0001 to #9999) and a unique profile badge.

In October 2018, "Discord Nitro" was renamed "Discord Nitro Classic" with the introduction of the new "Discord Nitro", which cost $9.99 and included access to free games through the Discord game store. Monthly subscribers of Discord Nitro Classic at the time of the introduction of the Discord games store were gifted with Discord Nitro, lasting until January 1, 2020, and yearly subscribers of Discord Nitro Classic were gifted with Discord Nitro until January 1, 2021.

However in October 2019, Discord ended the free game service with Nitro.

In June 2019, Discord introduced Server Boosts, a way to benefit specific servers by purchasing a "boost" for it, with enough boosts granting various benefits for the users in that particular server. Each boost is a subscription costing $4.99 a month. For example, if a server maintains 2 boosts, it unlocks perks such as a higher maximum audio quality in voice channels and the ability to use an animated server icon. Users with Discord Nitro or Discord Nitro Classic have a 30% discount on server boost costs, with Nitro subscribers specifically also getting 2 free server boosts.

Discord began testing digital stickers on its platform in October 2020 for users in Canada. Most stickers cost between $1.50 and $2.25 and are part of Discord's monetization strategy. Discord Nitro subscribers received a free "What's Up Wumpus" sticker pack focused on Discord's mascot, Wumpus.

Reception
By January 2016, Hammer & Chisel reported that Discord had been used by 3 million people, with growth of 1 million per month, reaching 11 million users in July that year. By December 2016, the company reported it had 25 million users worldwide. By the end of 2017, the service had drawn nearly 90 million users, with roughly 1.5 million new users each week. With the service's third anniversary, Discord stated that it had 130 million unique registered users. The company observed that while the bulk of its servers are used for gaming-related purposes, a small number have been created by users for non-gaming activities, like stock trading, fantasy football, and other shared interest groups.

In May 2016, one year after the software's release, Tom Marks, writing for PC Gamer, described Discord as the best VoIP service available. Lifehacker has praised Discord's interface, ease of use, and platform compatibility.

In 2021, Discord had at least 350 million registered users across its web and mobile platforms. It was used by 56 million people every month, sending a total of 25 billion messages per month. By June 2020, the company reported it had 100 million active users each month. As of 2021, the service has over 140 million monthly active users.

Controversies
Discord has had problems with hostile behavior and abuse within chats, with some communities of chat servers being "raided" (the taking over of a server by a large number of users) by other communities. This includes flooding with controversial topics related to race, religion, politics, and pornography. Discord has stated that it has plans to implement changes that would "rid the platform of the issue".

To better protect its users and its services since these events, Discord has implemented a trust and safety team that is on call around the clock to monitor the servers and respond to reports. This includes dealing with user harassment, servers that violate Discord's terms of service, and protecting servers from "raiding" and spamming by malicious users or bots. While they do not directly monitor messages, the trust and safety team can determine malicious activity from service use patterns and/or user-generated reports and take appropriate steps, including more detailed investigation, to deal with the matter. The service plans to expand this team as they continue to gain new users.

Discord gained popularity with the alt-right due to the pseudonymity and privacy offered by Discord's service. Analyst Keegan Hankes from the Southern Poverty Law Center said "It's pretty unavoidable to be a leader in this [alt-right] movement without participating in Discord". In early 2017, CEO Jason Citron stated Discord was aware of these groups and their servers. Citron stated that servers found to be engaged in illegal activities or violations of the terms of service would be shut down, but would not disclose any examples.

Following the violent events that occurred during the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12, 2017, it was found that Discord had been used to plan and organize the white nationalist rally. This included participation by Richard Spencer and Andrew Anglin, high-level figures in the movement. Discord responded by closing servers that supported the alt-right and far-right, and banning users who had participated. Discord's executives condemned "white supremacy" and "neo-Nazism", and said that these groups "are not welcome on Discord". Discord has worked with the Southern Poverty Law Center to identify hateful groups using Discord and ban those groups from the service. Since then, several neo-Nazi and alt-right servers have been shut down by Discord, including those operated by neo-Nazi terrorist group Atomwaffen Division, Nordic Resistance Movement, Iron March, and European Domas.

In January 2018, The Daily Beast reported that it found several Discord servers that were specifically engaged in distributing revenge porn and facilitating real-world harassment of the victims of these images and videos. Such actions are against Discord's terms of service and Discord shut down servers and banned users identified from these servers.

In July 2018, Discord updated its terms of service to ban drawn pornography with underage subjects. Some Discord users subsequently criticized the moderation staff for selectively allowing "cub" content, or underage pornographic furry artwork, under the same guidelines. The staff held that "cub porn" was separate from lolicon and shotacon, being "allowable as long as it is tagged properly." After numerous complaints from the community, Discord amended its community guidelines in February 2019 to include "non-humanoid animals and mythological creatures as long as they appear to be underage" in its list of disallowed categories, in addition to announcing periodic transparency reports to better communicate with users.

In March 2019, the media collective Unicorn Riot published the contents of a Discord server used by several members of the white nationalist group Identity Evropa who were also members of the United States Armed Forces.

In January 2021, two days after the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol, Discord deleted the pro-Donald Trump server "The Donald", "due to its overt connection to an online forum used to incite violence, plan an armed insurrection in the United States, and spread harmful misinformation related to 2020 U.S. election fraud", while denying that the server had any direct connection to the attack on the Capitol building. The server had been used by former members of the r/The_Donald subreddit, which Reddit had deleted several months previously.

On January 27, 2021, Discord banned the r/WallStreetBets server during the GameStop short squeeze, because of "hateful and discriminatory content", which users found contentious. One day later, Discord allowed another server to be created and began assisting with moderation on it.

See also
 Comparison of VoIP software
 Comparison of cross-platform instant messaging clients
 List of freeware

Notes

References

Further reading

External links
 

2015 software
Alt-tech
Android (operating system) software
Freeware
Internet properties established in 2015
IOS software
Instant messaging clients for Linux
MacOS instant messaging clients
Windows instant messaging clients
Proprietary cross-platform software
Voice over IP clients for Linux
VoIP software Discord may refer to:

Entertainment
 Discord (film), a 1933 British drama
 Discord (My Little Pony), a television character
 Discord (album), or its title track, by Bomb Factory
 Discord, an album by Ryuichi Sakamoto
 Discord, an album by Stewart Walker
 "Discord", a 2006 single by The Fire Engines
 "Fukyōwaon" (不協和音, Discord), a 2017 single by Keyakizaka46
 "Discord", a song by After Forever, featured on their album After Forever

Places
 Discord, Iowa, a community in the United States
 Illa de la Discòrdia ("Block of Discord"), a city block in Eixample, Barcelona, Spain
 Cape Discord, a headland in Greenland

Technology 
 Discord (software), an online application for messaging and audio/video communication 
 Quantum discord, a quantity in quantum information science

Other uses
 Discord, dissonance in music
 Discordia (or Discord), a Roman goddess

See also 
 Dischord Records, a punk and alternative record label
 
 
 Apple of Discord
 Discordant coastline
 Discordianism
 Discordia (disambiguation)
 WP:DISCORD, a Wikipedia-specific chat server